Good-bye to All That: What I Don't Miss Doing
I used to start jotting down notes for my holiday letter right after Labor Day. Summing up what my family and I had done over the year was a cherished ritual I thought I'd never abandon. Yet now, thanks to Facebook, e-mail, text messages, and YouTube, everybody on my list gets regular updates complete with pictures and videos. Not only that, but I enjoy Skype visits fairly often with my far-flung relatives. Consequently, an annual missive would be redundant. I've stopped writing one. I've also stopped buying boxes of expensive Christmas cards and rolls of stamps. When I think back on all the work and money that went into my bulk mailing, I don't miss any of that at all - certainly not the time I spent handwriting the addresses on the envelopes and penning personal notes to many of the recipients.
Write your relationship success story. Find 50+ Singles on BetterDate.com. Join Today!
I know I'm not alone because in 2011, I received a grand total of three holiday letters - two of them from people who are Facebook holdouts and the third from a colleague who seldom posts on her Wall. That turn of events got me to thinking about other ways in which our lives are different - and in most cases easier - than they once were. Here's my list:
We don't have to dress up in uncomfortable clothes to take a plane ride. Almost every traveler of every age on my flights to and from Phoenix last December was wearing jeans. I was, too, and I don't in the least bemoan the passing of the glam era of air travel. Of course back then we didn't have to strip off coats, shoes, jewelry, and belts to go through security, but that's another story.
We don't have to host or attend those once-fashionable parties that involved lots of rich food, cocktails, cigarettes, and after dinner cigars for the men. Get-togethers these days tend to be much more relaxed and health conscious. Who can argue with that trend?
We only rarely have to send and receive faxes, which means we also don't have to deal with paper jams or connections that don't go through. And we don't have to decide whether to file or toss the faxes. (Remember the old slimy fax paper? But now I'm really dating myself!)
We don't have to program the VCR, which most people couldn't do anyway.
We don't have to buy film and then wait while our photos are being developed.
We don't have to answer the phone if Caller ID lets us know that the caller is someone we don't want to talk to at the moment.
We don't have to listen to a long string of voicemails if we've been away from our landlines for any length of time. For one thing, most people email rather than call nowadays and for another, we can check remotely for whatever messages we do get and take care of them on the spot if need be.
We rarely have to write paper checks because most of us do our banking online.
We don't have carry change for pay phones or stand in line for a turn to use one.
We don't have to use the card catalogue at the library unless we get a hankering to be in the stacks for old time's sake.
Many of us don't have to make long commutes to work anymore. We telecommute and take our meetings via conference calls.
We don't have to rely on paper maps or even Google Maps or MapQuest to plan our routes. We've got GPS on our phones.
We don't have to call restaurants to make reservations or movie theaters to find out the times of the showings or places of business to find out what their hours are.
We don't have to look stuff up in encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauruses, the telephone directory or the Yellow Pages.
We don't have to go into a travel agent's office to plan a vacation.
We don't have to shop at brick and mortar stores unless we enjoy doing that.
We don't need paper day runners or address books.
We don't need watches if we get in the habit of checking our phones and we don't need alarm clocks if we set our phones to wake us up.
That's my list. I'm sure you could add to it. I also suspect that I'll look back on this roster in the not very distant future and find it quaint in light of whatever new developments have changed our routines even further. In the meantime, though, I'm marveling at the way we live now compared to the status quo just a short time ago!
Also Popular On ThirdAge:
6 Excuses For Not Saving For Retirement
